


Playing Messenger

by Caecelia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: rarepair_shorts, F/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:03:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caecelia/pseuds/Caecelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petunia just wanted a taste.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Playing Messenger

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 wishlist fest at rarepair_shorts (LJ) for mblfree's request: Severus/Petunia, thunderstorm.

"Where's Lily?"

He's soaked to the skin, spidery hands and scrawny arms wrapped around his chest, shivering, even, in those _rags_ he calls clothes. The rain, she observes, is kinder to his features than the sun – pressed to his thin, misshapen head by the pounding water, the greasy black hair has mostly lost its disgusting sheen, and his flashing eyes seem less disturbingly covetous than merely suspicious and defiant and perhaps even just a little bit desperate. Petunia thinks she can feel him recoiling before her, thinks she can smell the steaming, curdled mass of his disappointment . . .

She smirks and straightens beneath her umbrella, ready to use every inch of her advantage. She's not only taller, her dress is new and clean and dry, and she _knows_ what Lily's always trying to deny, that his father's a drunk and his mother's a touch insane and that he'll end up just like them someday, crouching in his own filth at Spinner's End.

For once, she also knows something _he_ doesn't.

"Why should I tell you?" she sniffs, twirling her umbrella and examining the nails on her other hand.

"Is she sick?" His eyes are wide and he has begun rocking back and forth on his heels, unaware of the muddy puddle beneath his feet, his swelling, cracked shoes.

She shifts in her Wellies and curls a lip. "If she were, then it would be no small thanks to _you_." Petunia stops looking at her fingernails to fix him with a glare. "Who knows what kinds of awful germs she's been exposed to because of you? I wouldn't be surprised if your house were _crawling_ with vermin, for one –"

"Is not," he injects, sullen and yet, Petunia crows inwardly, still too curious about Lily to put up a real fight.

"You're a liar," she breathes, infusing the last word with all the years of disgust and resentment she has been storing up towards this boy. "A liar and a _freak_. Why should I tell you anything about my sister?" Her mouth twists and she adds in a cold, yet conversational tone, "You don't _deserve_ to be around her, you know."

He is frowning and huddled, driven deeply into himself by more than just the lashing rain. "You're just jealous," he insists, pale spider-hands tightening around his ribs, around the oversized red and white Manc United jersey that surely belongs to his father.

"Why should I be jealous of weirdoes like you?" she retorts in the icy tone she's been practising ever since the _letter_ came. "What've you got that I haven't? A stick of wood you can't even use outside of school?" She gives a derisive laugh. "You think I _want_ my pockets full of useless slimy frog-spawn and to be able to turn teacups into rats?"

His face is screwed up in a scowl that makes him look even uglier than normal, that makes him look too old for a boy nearly two years her junior. The rain pearling in his straggly hair and weaving shining paths across his high brow, dribbling down hunger-fed cheeks and thin, arched lips – it also makes him seem unreal, statuesque. Petunia is suddenly, weirdly urged to wipe the water away – just to be able to touch him –

She shakes off the perverse thought, and yet can't help but continue to wonder about this boy who somehow conveys all the strangeness and exoticism of _their_ world in the unusual tilt and shading of his face, in eyes so unsettlingly, fathomlessly black –

Petunia realises that she is staring when he begins staring right back, scowl turned to smirk. She flushes with resentment and embarrassment and something else that feels like rage but is, somehow, disappointment –

"Frog eggs aren't useless," he says, smugly provocative, his whole body angled with the confidence of someone who knows he's won a round. "Even _Muggles_ can benefit from their use in hair-removal tonic and immunosuppressant potions and—"

"Do I look like I bloody care?" Petunia hisses, hand convulsing around her umbrella. She thinks about his lips, the water blooming on them like blood on a fresh cut. She wishes she had never thought to look at them. "I don't want to hear another word out of you, Snape. In fact, go home. Lily isn't coming."

His confidence falters: his brows knit together and he almost looks like an innocent boy, lost and desperate. Innocence and charm are reserved for his betters, however. "But –"

"Go home, I said."

Shifting in the puddle, hands stuffed in the oversized pockets of his father's rolled-up jeans, he tries, "Could you tell her –"

"Why should I tell her anything?" Petunia straightens and holds back a smirk. Just like that, she has the advantage again, and this time she is determined not to lose it. "After all, I'm just an ordinary _Muggle_. How can you expect me to convey your message properly?"

His lips twitch and his brow clouds. "I never –" he tells the ground, and Petunia thinks he's going to say _said you were stupid_ , but then he kicks at the perturbed surface of the puddle, sending dirty beads of water flying that nearly soil her dress. She yelps but doesn't jump back, because then he looks up, stubborn and radiating dislike and yet inexplicably, unbelievably compelling. "Please."

Petunia opens her mouth to say no and finds herself unable to look away from his lips. It's almost like the time last week when her father came to tuck her into bed and she'd looked up at his face and suddenly had to suppress the urge to kiss him on the mouth, only that Snape is not even remotely as handsome as her father –

Only that Snape has lips that speak magic, lips that have enchanted her sister with stories and have the power to command trees, lips and _eyes_ that sing of magic in a visceral way even Petunia senses . . .

She steps forward, heart skidding to a halt in her chest. Swallows. "Perhaps I would, but only if you do something for me in return."

He actually gapes at her – a new look for him, and not particularly flattering at that. "In – in return?"

"Why should I help you otherwise?"

At these words, his expression smoothens into a blank mask that nearly reminds her of herself. "But of course," and there is something _else_ in his voice, something calculated and weighty that doesn't belong in Cokesworth and is thrillingly _new_. "What do you wish for me to do?"

She spins the umbrella, pretending to require a moment of thought, then pins him with her eyes. "Kiss me."

There is a heart-stopping pause in which he doesn't react except to shiver and dart his eyes between her lips and her umbrella and the flooded path leading out of the playground. His voice, when it emerges, is nearly drowned out by the now softly pattering rain. "And if I say no?"

Petunia shrugs. "I suppose I'd just have to tell Lily you never came –"

"She wouldn't believe you!" he rails out, face already blotching with ugly patches of red.

"Possibly," she says carelessly, and at the mutinous expression on his face, leans closer, hissing, "I never figured you for a coward, Snape, but it seems it wouldn't be much of a lie were I to tell Lily _that_."

Face scrunched with at least ten kinds of emotion, he shakes clenched fists. "I'm NOT a coward!"

"Prove it."

He drops his hands and stares up at her, offended and frustrated and bemused, and then his eyes dart back towards the path leading away from the playground to Spinner's End. "In return, you promise –" There is a slight tremor in his voice; he scowls and threatens: "You have to promise –"

"I won't tell Lily about _this_ ," she says past the resentment building in her throat. "And yes, I'll play messenger for you _again_."

He hesitates a moment longer, a moment in which Petunia feels her resentment melt into delicious, curling anticipation. Those arched lips – so thin they seem cruel and mocking and foreign even as he forces them into a determined line – suddenly she _has_ to know what they are like.

And when he braves a step forward, face heated and clearly upset, it's all too slow for Petunia. With an impatient noise, she closes the space between them and grabs him by the shoulders –

"Are you out of your _mind_?" he shrieks, voice unnaturally high.

Her umbrella falls – but the shock of cold rain doesn't faze her – she covers his mouth with hers –

He grunts and struggles, but she's bigger and taller and stronger and pushes him, stumbles against him until they're pressed against the nearest tree, his hands held down by hers and his freezing lips forcefully mashed against her own. The kiss is too cold and wet at first, but she pulls back slightly and nibbles at his lips until they begin to warm. Snape makes choking sounds and tries to turn his face away, but she is still stronger, and she is the one who is heady on the power in her hands, and when he tries to kick out she punishes him by swooping in and biting his lip with the full intention of drawing blood –

He stiffens in disbelief when she succeeds, dark eyes dilating in horror as she sucks the blood in, as she continues sucking at the bright tang of the magic she thinks she's tasting alongside oxygen and iron and protein. She continues sucking until he seems shocked past resisting, until his hands and mouth become pliant beneath hers and she is able to slip the point of her tongue past the uneven surface of his teeth – yellow, mismatched teeth, she remembers –

Snape is trembling now, nearly _bucking_ with panic – unwilling to let him escape, she grinds closer and realises with a jolt that he's hardening despite himself, despite the dismay in his eyes. Petunia finds this arousing despite the plaque-and-rotting-food taste of his mouth. She presses closer and runs her tongue along the ridges of his much cooler one, tasting the forbidden thrill of poverty and the magic she will never truly know, but that tastes so much _better_ than ordinariness, surely – and, tentatively, he brushes his tongue against hers, making her synapses roar to life –

And then she is screaming, pulling away in sharp agony, for his teeth have come – biting down. Blood is welling out of her mouth before she knows it; her eyes are leaking tears.

"Wha' was zha' for?" she screeches, mouth bubbling with blood and dirty rain.

Snape pulls himself up from the tree, a look of such murderous fury and loathing on his face that Petunia is momentarily rooted to the spot. "Don't," he snarls, "don't you _ever_ touch me again."

She emerges from her trance to spit at him, the blood landing on his face and neck. He jerks back, incensed. "Filthy Muggle," he hisses, smearing red spittle all over himself with the back of his hand.

"Right," she says, dark laughter bursting up past her instinct to choke, past the pressure of tears, "as though anyone else would ever dream of kissing _you_ – wait tell I tell Lily how _awful_ you taste – what are you doing!" she bursts out, for he has pulled a slim, dark wand from his pocket.

"My mother's wand," he sneers. His hand seems to be shaking as he aims it at her temple, but his expression is cold and steady. "I should have done this from the very start."

Horrified, she begins backing away. "Snape, I won't say a word; _please_ –"

Flick of wrist – she turns and slips, because of the puddle, because of _Obliviate_.

"Stupid Muggle," Snape whispers. In a trembling, yet discernable flick, he heals her mouth, then levitates her beneath her umbrella to a nearby bench.

The taste of blood on her lips is all she remembers in the end.


End file.
